Protecting information has been a top priority for every organization. The developed security-first compliance programs should act accordingly with the required regulations. Continuous monitoring allows enterprises to protect their data and also enables consistent compliance. Security first compliance approach begins with securing the environment. Information security professionals strongly believe that tracking assets, assessing risks and threats, and establishing controls first create stable security. Developing better IT controls before determining the structure that companies want to arrange makes better protection and compliance as many of them overlap. Continuous monitoring helps track the attack by a hacker on systems and networks in real time. Tracking alerts that detect the attack on the systems will provide a shallow defense mechanism. The industries also need information into external controls that maintain the system and network integrity.

Modern information technology incurs a variety of web-based cloud data solutions. For example, a retailer using Amazon Web Services for online sales also includes a point of service in their physical location. The retailer needs to encrypt the data in their systems, payment portals, and information storage locations which ensure the protection of all cardholder data as a part of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance. As the people interacting with data increases, attack surface increases too. Big data collection and predictive statistical models allow the companies to automate information gathering and helps determine risks to the data. Risk, compliance, and governance are the main motives for securing data. Continuous monitoring gives effective controls allowing businesses to design a risk management process. Annual risk assessments provide insights into the current data environment. Most compliance standards require risk rating of data where continuous monitoring eases the complexities of this process.

Documenting the continuous monitoring efforts is the primary aspect. After establishing that the businesses have noticed threats that harm the current data environment, they need to ensure that those controls are mapped across various frames and regulations. There are some software platforms which make data collection for the auditing process, and the unified control management feature allows organizations to determine whether compliance exists. By introducing such platforms, organizations can focus on the fundamental issues of compliance while doing the long, slow tasks which enables businesses to make the governance and continuous monitoring more effective.